Knife's Edge
by shywalk
Summary: Something happens to Peter that has far reaching consequences
1. Default Chapter

KNIFE'S EDGE  
By Wendy Hislop  
  
CHARACTERS: Peter Caine, Kwai Chang Caine,  
Kermit Griffin, Donnie Double D.  
  
GUEST STARS: Quinn and ???? Well that would be   
letting the cat out of the bag, now wouldn't it?  
  
SYNOPSIS: Well, did I mention that Peter may have   
stepped in it again.....Hope you enjoy.  
  
WARNING: Violence and very bad words My mum   
doesn't like 'em, if that helps.  
  
Please note that all NON-KFTLC characters are mine.  
Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is a roll of  
the dice and purely unintentional. Hey, if you have met,   
know anyone remotely like my characters, I have some   
words for you 'GET SOME NEW FRIENDS'   
  
Thank you goes to Tas, Denise, Judy and others ....who   
have over the years have whipped and prodded this woman   
to the end. Also to my friends, sick lot that they are (LOL)  
who just won't let me quit, even when the muse goes on   
holidays, long, long holidays.   
  
Thanks to my beta babe, Val  
And a big thank you to this list for being here....  
  
Copyright (c) 2001 by Wendy Hislop  
  
KFKFKFKFKFKFKFKFKFKFKFKFKFTLC  
  
'Not pure of progeny, but pure of heart, Shambaq will be as any child when born. A trial by fire will leave him alone to wander the earth for a time. A son of two fathers, he will be a man who struggles to find balance in two worlds.   
  
In one world, he will carry a shield of protection. In the other, he will be forced to face his fears. Many times, he will come face to face with death. Each time, casting the shadow of fate aside to live.   
  
At the last, alone and lost in an endless maze of questions and fears, he will lose his way as evil casts its sweeping shadow of darkness. The candle of light will fade. Destiny's son will have a choice, light or dark, life or death. If he chooses the path of light and lives, he will be the one. He will be the chosen one. He will be Shambaq'  
  
  
Knife's Edge  
~Prologue~  
  
The exhausted man awoke to the usual reek of dampness and mold. Shivering, he wrapped his arms around his bare chest in the futile attempt to garner some warmth to his trembling body, a ritual now done without conscious thought. As always, it was an impossible task in the dankness of his four-by-seven foot cell, the small vent and lack of windows leaving no room for even the barest ray of light to seep in.   
  
A painful intake of breath was released as his fingers, in their search for any semblance of warmth, brushed the myriad-colored welts that festered in bizarre patterns of pain and anger on his back and chest. Moving painfully, the old cot he had been forced to use as a bed, creaked and moaned under him.   
  
Slowly rising, it took only a few short steps for him to reach the toilet and for this one small luxury, he found himself begrudgingly grateful. He had spent the first few days of his captivity with his body arched over the stained and cracked bowl as he lost the contents of his stomach. He was sure the amenity was not done out of favor, or dignity, but more for the benefit of his captors, so they wouldn't be forced to clean up after him.   
  
Like a zoo animal, he was sure he was being kept to amuse.  
  
Once he had relieved himself, he began his usual exercise program  
of pacing. The small space gave him little chance of fluid movement, but he knew he had to do something -- even if pacing the tiny cell was all he could do.  
  
The usual thoughts floated through his head as he tried to stretch and walk off the pain of his incarceration. But he was always left with the one most important question. With no answer forthcoming, he continued to pace, his bare feet seemingly keeping time with his unanswered questions.  
  
The one thing he did know for certain was that it wasn't mealtime; he would have awakened to find his food sitting on the floor on a plastic plate. His meals were always served after gas was piped through the vent to put him to sleep.   
  
Once he had realized what they were doing, he'd tried to stop the fumes by stuffing the vent with his shirt. It hadn't worked, and when he woke, his shirt and jeans, socks and shoes were gone. He was left clad only in his boxers, and he had been left that way ever since.   
  
The solitude itself was hard enough to endure, but not knowing why this was all happening to him was the worst of it. As the beatings had blurred the line between endless hours and then days, he had lost count of the times he'd asked, "Why?" Only to have the questions answered with repeated blows to his stomach, a backhand to the face, or the stick to his back.  
  
The familiar smell of gas wafted through the vent. He had given up  
days (or was that weeks?) ago trying to hold his breath; he surrendered to the inevitable and collapsed into darkness.  
  
KFKFKFKFKFKFTLC  
  
The sensation of pain brought him reluctantly back to awareness. The tunnel of oblivion opened to the bright light that always welcomed his return to consciousness. Squinting against the brilliant illumination that was in such a contrast to the darkness of his room, he tasted the copper flavor of blood as his tongue ventured to the broken skin of his lip. He wondered if the mouth would ever get the time to heal.  
  
"Good morning. We trust you are well rested?" A disembodied voice asked.  
  
"Well, given the five-star accommodations you have supplied me with, what do you think?" He snapped back as he stood on trembling legs, spitting blood from his mouth as he did so.  
  
"I think, sometimes, you get what you deserve," the voice countered.  
  
Shivering against the cold caused by his near nakedness, the embittered man glared into the light. "And I'm sure you'll get what you 'deserve', just hope I'm still alive to see it."   
  
"Well, your pulse, or lack of, is entirely in your hands."  
  
"I told you, I can't change what I don't know." He defiantly shot back, making a feeble attempt to break free from the two men that held him.   
  
There was a faint chuckle. "What you don't know, or what you want us to believe that you don't know? Playing stupid doesn't become the man I know you are."  
  
"Then I guess, you're one up on me, because I don't know who the Hell I am," the exhausted man replied.  
  
"Of course you don't, but you will. Now tell me what I want to know."  
  
"How can I tell you," he choked as his strength started to ebb and he sagged in his captor's hands. "...When I don't even know who this Peter Caine is?"  
  
[end of prologue] 


	2. Knife's Edge Part 1

Knife's Edge  
by WendyH  
  
~ Part one ~  
Disclaimers in synopsis  
  
~ Present ~  
  
It had been over a month since Peter's reappearance, a month of endless nightmares of pain and darkness. He was told it had taken nearly seven days for the veil of confusion and forgetfulness that had shrouded his mind to lift and then, when he had at last gained some semblance of reality, he encountered expectant faces, waiting -- waiting for answers that he found himself unable to give.  
  
Most of the bruises and cuts that had marred his body were healing now, thanks to his father's ministrations, and where there had been deep wounds, there was now only barely visible scars. His body was easily fixed. It opened, it bled and it was healed, simple. If only his soul was that easy to repair. So much had been taken from him, time, memories, but he was vaguely aware of something else. He couldn't voice what it was, nor could he say with any clarity at all was done to him, or why, but he knew deep down inside, he had lost something, or someone.   
  
His missing time and the pain that came with his aborted attempts to try and remember plagued his waking days and nights. Peaceful sleep had always been a stranger to Peter, something he had long learned to lived without. Childhood memories, having been a constant source of nightmares, but now his demons had no faces. There was no Master Dao to swear revenge on, no logic to his pain, just the agony of the unknown.  
  
Standing at his apartment window, Peter scanned the streets below him, wondering if he was looking at the place where his life was taken away from him, questioning if the evil that had stolen his last thread of peace was still out there, waiting for him.  
  
"You're hovering again, father," he whispered as his father approached him from behind.  
  
Caine had been watching Peter. He knew he was close to healing his son's body, but Peter's mind and heart had been so badly damaged that Caine was at a loss to know how to help him. "It is a father's job to...hover...over his child."  
  
"But I'm not a child anymore." Peter turned to face his father. "Am I, father?"  
  
Caine looked into the hazel eyes of his child, eyes now devoid of life, yet undeniably full of pain.  
  
"No, you are a man, but you are still and always will be my child, and it hurts to see my child in such pain." Reaching out his hand, Caine attempted to comfort Peter, and maybe himself with the familiar touch.  
  
Peter felt his father's hand breeze past his cheek as he quickly moved out of range and put distance between them.  
  
"But it's not pain I'm feeling, I'm empty. I feel like I'm standing on an invisible floor that hovers over a huge abyss...." His voice wavered, desperate, as he was to make his father understand what he was feeling inside. "And it's waiting for me to fall." Balling a hand into a fist, the angry man repeatedly began to thump at his chest, ignoring the pain it caused on his yet healed wounds. "It's waiting for me and I don't know why."  
  
Caine stepped to his son's side, catching his hand before Peter could strike himself again. Holding tight to the clenched fist, he could barely feel Peter's energy, as it surged and ebbed in its struggle for life. The link to his son had changed, becoming faint; a fragile thread, that now wavered with his son's emotions. "I will not let you fall, but you must fight these feelings my son." Caine's words seemed a hollow sword even to his own ears, against the might of his son's anguish.  
  
A lone tear fell as Peter searched his father's face for the answers he needed so desperately. "How do I fight it? It hasn't a name, no face. How can I fight something that I can't see, but that can see me?" Suddenly drained, Peter began to slip to the floor.  
  
Caine pulled Peter into his arms, feeling his son's body shake as they fell to their knees together.  
  
"What did they do to me?" Peter cried into his father's shoulder.  
"Father, what do they want from me?"  
  
End of part one 


	3. Knife's Edge Part 2

Knife's Edge  
by WendyH  
  
~ Part two ~  
Disclaimers in synopsis  
  
  
  
~ Six weeks ago ~  
  
"How can I answer any of your questions, when I don't even know who this Peter Caine is?" Barely able to stand, he heard his voice crack and break in defeat. Peter Caine, how he had come to hate that name. To the exhausted man, Caine was a curse and the cause of all of his pain. "Don't you think if I knew what you wanted to know, I would have told you by now?"  
  
"Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't," the voice riddled.  
  
Nothing he said seemed to make the slightest difference to his tormentor's routine, nor did it change the monotonous and repetitive questions that he was interrogated with.   
  
Moving out from behind the light, the man the captive had come to know as Quinn dropped his spent cigarette, crushing it under his boot. Nodding to the two men who up to now had only a casual need to restrain the weakened prisoner, he watched with some satisfaction as they roughly manhandled the exhausted man's arms, pulling them back until they strained the arm sockets, extracting a muffled cry.   
  
Physically drained by days of abuse, the captive did his captor's work for them by dropping to his knees in exhaustion. With their brutal grip digging into his bruise-covered body, he could nothing but stay on his knees and wait for the next phase of his torment.  
  
"How about we vary the routine a bit and you just answer my friend's questions -- or should I just get on with kicking the shit out of you, as usual?" The deep voice questioned as he paused to light another cigarette. "Though I am hoping you will be your usual stubborn ass of a self; I do so enjoy our dates."  
  
Hearing the grating voice, full of its own self-importance, the tortured man drew on his last remaining sense of self-respect and renewed his struggle against the iron hands that held him down. "Well, I hope you brought flowers and chocolates, because I don't know *shit*." He didn't know where this last trace of bravado came from; all he knew was that he wanted it all to stop, but every time they pushed, something inside made him push back.  
  
Quinn chuckled as he took the cigarette from his lips and blew on the end, flaring the fiery red tip. "Well, then, shall I lead?"  
  
The captive closed his eyes to the sight of the cigarette as it came closer, but while he could shut the image out, he couldn't separate himself from the pain as his chest was used as an ashtray. The hazel eyes snapped open, glaring at his tormentor, "You...should play another...record. I think...we've already danced to this one before," he hissed, referring to his battle-scarred torso.   
  
"So we have," Quinn smiled, withdrawing the cigarette. "But you just don't seem to be able to get those steps just right, do you? We ask the questions, you answer them." He sneered as he flexed his fingers until the knuckles cracked. "I think you're going to need some more lessons. Now, about Peter Caine?"  
  
Hearing the name again, the captive man started to buck against the arms that held him. "You can give me as many....damn lessons as you...want; it won't...change anything. I don't know this Peter... Caine and just in case you were wondering...I haven't met the...damn tooth fairy, either."  
  
"Well, that's a pity about that last one, because I think you're going to need some dental work." A punch connected with the younger man's jaw that would have sent him reeling if it weren't for the arms that forcibly held him in place.  
  
Gasping for air and spitting blood from his mouth, the prisoner deliberately targeted his assailant's shoes. He couldn't contain the satisfied grin as his blood splattered its pattern onto Quinn's obviously expensive alligator boots.  
  
Quinn glared at the blood that now stained his expensive shoes. "Oh, you shouldn't have done that," he snarled as he grabbed a handful of the prisoner's hair and began to rain blow after blow into the young man's face.  
  
"Enough!" The voice behind the light angrily demanded. "You know, Mr. Quinn, rendering him a walking vegetable somewhat 'defeats' my purpose!"  
  
"My purpose would be send that smart-ass to Hell, but you're the boss," he sneered, as he gestured for his men to take the now unconscious and bloodied man away, before pausing to stoop and wipe the offending blood and spit from his boots with his handkerchief.   
  
The room was thrown into darkness as the spotlight was turned off, and normal light was restored. The inquisitor, his ponytail hanging over the front of his right shoulder, rose from the chair where he had been sitting and walked to the closed window. "As you said Mr. Quinn, I'm the 'boss'. Anyway, no need to take it so personally," he grinned, apparently more than a little amused by his associate's animosity.   
  
As the electric blinds began to rise, Quinn joined his boss as they looked out at the surrounding countryside. "Personal, you should talk. You're planning the death of a member of your own family, how more personal can you get than that?"   
  
Turning to study the man beside him, Quinn shook his head, "You know, you are very strange, Caine, but I suppose that comes from being raised by men intent on taking over the world by claiming some self-decreed divine right. One would guess that would tend to warp anyone sense of reality."  
  
"You weren't here when 'The Brotherhood' took its first breaths of life, Mr. Quinn, when we battled the Shaolin to gain the 'power' that is ours by right. The Sing Wah had the power within their grasp until 'Kwai Chang Caine' sent the Dark Warrior back to his realm. His power was real and the book of Shambala is to all Sing Wah, an undeniable fact. We of 'The Brotherhood', have seen it. Touched it. But what Bon Bon Hai and the Sing Wah failed to do when they had the chance, was read the fine print," Damon smiled as he continued to gaze through the window. "Failed to see past their own desires and see that there was more power to be found from within, than from without."  
  
"And that means what exactly?"   
  
Damon turned to face Quinn, "It means, I will have the Shambaq and all the power that he brings with him."   
  
"Oh, don't tell me, this Shambaq was born to be some warped Shaolin Jedi-knight...Come to the dark side of Shaolin, Luke." Quinn mocked in a deep Darth Vader-like voice.   
  
Without warning, a blade appeared in Damon's hand and within an instant, its sharp edge was pressed to the skin of Quinn's throat. "Never mock the 'Brotherhood', never mock me, Mr. Quinn," Damon hissed into his right hand man's face, ensuring Quinn got the message by nicking the skin. "Never, 'ever' mock me."  
  
  
KFKFKFKFKFKFTLC  
  
The cell door was wrenched open, and the awakened, but injured man's abused body was unceremoniously thrown in. The door was slammed shut and bolted behind him, leaving him just as bewildered as he always was after these encounters.  
  
Forcing his arms to move, he weakly attempted to push himself up  
from the floor. It always amazed him how they never broke anything, just managed in painful ways, to bend it a little. Weakly pushing away the tray of food that had been left for him, he managed to raise himself to his knees, though breathless from the effort.   
  
As he wrapped his arms around his bruised body, the hopelessness of his situation drained his last vestige of strength. Without a sound, his head fell forward, his body rocking to and fro.   
  
"What do you want? What do you want? What do you want?" he moaned, before he threw his head back and screamed, "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"  
  
  
[end part two] 


End file.
